“We will have a lot more peaches, plums and nectarines than we did last year” because of “new plantings that are coming on line for us,” Justin Bedwell, a partner at Bari Produce LLC in Madera, CA, said in an interview with The Produce News. In addition, the company has about 80 acres of apricots that will be in production this year “that we didn’t have last year,” he said. “Every year, we continue to have more parcels that are coming into production on apricots.”

The company’s stone fruit season will kick off with the apricots, Mr. Bedwell said. He expected to be ready for harvest beginning the first week in May, followed by “some early peaches and early nectarines, all in the first couple of weeks of May.”

Bari’s apricot program consists of just two varieties. “We will start with Poppycots,” he said. “That will carry us pretty much through May. Then toward the end of the month or the first part of June, we start with our Giant Lorna apricot.”

The Giant Lorna, which accounts for the majority of the company’s apricot volume, has “really big size, kind of like a smaller peach,” and “big flavor” as well, he said. They travel well and “seem to last longer on the retail shelves than a traditional smaller apricot. They don’t get mushy. They stay firm, and they look really nice.”

Bari’s entire apricot program will run for eight to 10 weeks, he said.

The apricots are nearly all hand packed in the field, Mr. Bedwell said. “We tray pack everything that goes in a premium box, so we really try to minimize the bruising on the other end. It costs us money. It slows us down a little bit. But when you don’t have any arrival problems on the other end, it seems to pay for itself.”

The apricot crop looks good this year, he said. “We are probably looking at an average to maybe slightly larger [than average] crop” on the trees, but ordinarily the number of pieces of fruit that set on the trees “doesn’t really affect us because we try to thin really hard. We go for larger-sized fruit.” Therefore, unless there is a very light set, the number of pieces of fruit left on the tree after thinning is usually the same every year.

The company’s stone fruit program consists primarily of yellow flesh peaches and nectarines as well as plums. In the peach and nectarine categories, many of Bari’s new plantings coming on line this year are white flesh varieties of peaches and nectarines, Mr. Bedwell said. In the plum category, much of the new acreage coming into production is Pluots.

“We have a fair amount of early-season [peaches and nectarines] in the same area where our apricots are,” which will give the company additional fruit that can be shipped along with the apricots,” he said.

Overall, Bari’s stone fruit volume will be up about 30 percent over last year, with good weather as well as new plantings contributing to the increase, he said. The good weather should also contribute to the flavor, size and overall quality of the fruit.